This is one of the hardest "inside the box" ideas to get away from. Why do we buy HSH in 10' sections? Because that's the way we've always done it? Because that's what is required for the cert/accept/service tests?

If you have a 12' body, why not have 12' sections of HSH? If you have a ladder rack holding a 14' ladder, why not have it hold 14' sections of HSH?

On most rigs there is adequate room to stack them two high on each side of the hosebed. Imagine if every truck in your inventory carried four 14' sections and a floating dock strainer. That makes at lot more bodies of water useful water points.

Our Rigs are set up just like that. One engine has 13 footers (3) and the other has 12 foot. I always get a kick out of seeing rigs with these tiny little suction hoses on long bodies. Even better, if you have a 3 level rack, getting a 25 or 30 foot section and wrapping it from the top tray dowb to the bottom tray means you dont need to connect 2 lengths together all the time.

Here is a setup we did at a recent pump classes.
This was a 50' draft. We filled tankers at about 1000 GPM. We never did test the actual flow capability of the configuration, to my dismay.

Looking down from on top of the rig.

This configuration was 60 feet, and in water about 10 inches deep at best. We used a rock to weigh the low level strainer down. The point we were trying to illustrate was twofold-One---you can use more suction hose than your rig carries. Two---you can draft in crappy sources as a last resort.

Another view.

This was tested and we were able to acheive 500 GPM. The pump was rated 1750. Certainly not ideal, but usable in a pinch.

Turbo Draft and Rural Water Supply in general

Not bragging but I would be willing to bet there are few who have spent as much time and effort to find effective ways to use the Turbo Draft as I have. I'm not selling it, just saying that if you think outside the box a little you can greatly improve your usable water numbers from where they are now. What would be your reaction to going from 5 to 600 gallons per minute to getting 1100 gallons per minute. Or what would you think of having three (3) engines all drafting from one (1) drop tank with a combined flow of approximately 3000 gallons per minute all being supplied by Turbo Draft. I've run 400 feet of 5inch from the turbo, connected it to the engine and still turned 500 gallons per minute. It's not a single method use tool. The ways to use it are many. I have pictures and documentation of these efforts, enough to where the use of this device is taught in our Basic Pump Operations and Rural Water Supply classes. But then we also do weird things like combine the efforts of three (3) portable pumps to achieve flows of 1000 gallons per minute. I'm not advertising but the Albemarle County Spring schedule is getting ready to start. If you have any questions feel free to look us up and drop me a line.
Dale Deane
IAFF Local 4077
Albemarle County Fire Rescue
Albemarle County Virginia